Sooner or later we begin wondering about the things we are experiencing.

The importance of knowing how we know (4)

I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under the heaven. Ecclesiastes 1:13

Soaking up knowledge

Human beings are information sponges. We seem to have an insatiable desire to know things, or, at least, to have acquaintance with a wide range of information and experiences. Whether our sources are respected authorities – writers, teachers, parents, knowledgeable others – or our own experience of the world, we are continuously absorbing new information.

This information – whether verbal or experiential – lingers in our brains, either until it simply goes away or we do something with it. Much – doubtless, most – of it we simply forget. Some, however, we process into what, for our purposes, we recognize as knowledge. In order to accomplish this, to transform information and experiences into knowledge, we need to line up new information with old. The process whereby we accomplish this transaction involves us in the work of reasoning.

Reasoning is an important part of the process of how we come to know the things we know. It consists of a variety of skills, procedures, and guidelines which we assume – rightly or wrongly – everyone shares in common. Everybody understands that human beings are reasoning creatures, from the exasperated parent who screams at his irresponsible teen, “What were you thinking?” to the math teacher who assigns “thought problems” and the employer who asks her staff to work out a solution to a persistent office problem. We may differ in the degree of confidence we place in reason as a way of knowing, but not even the most devoted irrationalist can explain or support his opinions apart from reason. Those who try to do so, we label as “unreasonable” or even “mad.”

By engaging information, situations, and one another with the resources and tools of reason we activate the knowing centers of our brains and engage the process that can lead to true knowledge.

But there are a few things we must beware of concerning reason as a way of knowing. I do not intend here to offer a mini-seminar on the nature and function of reason. Rather, I simply wish to highlight three important points about reason which it is necessary to keep in mind in order to use reason properly as a tool in the knowing process.

Reason has its rules

First, reason is not just a matter of “giving reasons.” If it were that, then “Because I said so, that’s why!” would probably be everybody’s preferred use of reason in justifying the things we claim to know. In most cases, however, we shall need to see evidence of better reasoning than this.

Perhaps the best known rule of reason can be summarized as “You can’t have it both ways.” A statement claiming to be true cannot be one thing and something else; it cannot be black and white, at least, not entirely (the nature of light excepted – for now). The familiar trap that adolescents use with one another – “Were you lying to me then or are you lying to me now?” – captures the essence of this rule of reason. Reason requires consistency and clarity if it is to help us move information or experiences into the category of knowledge.

A second rule of reason is captured in the saying, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” If, in a conversation, I choose to argue from A to B (let’s say, “What I have read lately” to “What I know truly”), then I must be prepared to allow others to claim this rule as well. The presence of such a rule of reason should encourage us to make sure our “A” points are sufficiently formidable both to allow our “B” conclusions and to override the “A¹” resources of our conversation partner.

A third rule of reason is perhaps more heuristic: conclusions must make sense based on the premises from which they are drawn. Back in the 60s, when American culture was breaking free of the chains of decency and good sense, kids my age told ridiculous jokes which we regarded as funny because they thumbed their noses at all reason. Here’s an example: If a submarine with seven wheels is sailing down your basement stair case, how many pancakes does it take to cover a doghouse? The answer: Three pink flies. We laughed ourselves silly at such jokes precisely because they made no sense and we were tired of making sense!

But when knowledge, and perhaps even truth, is on the line, it’s extremely important that our conclusions make sense, that they follow clearly and logically from our premises and fit in nicely with the rest of what we know about the world and how it works.

So as our information and experience accumulate and we begin to apply our minds and hearts to sorting it out, we must make sure that we have a working acquaintance with the rules of reason. Otherwise, we may end up putting pink flies in the ointment of knowing.

Reason is not objective

People sometimes act as if reason were a fool-proof method for arriving at objective truth. If we can just gather all the facts, put our heads together, talk it out, and work it through, we can arrive at the “right” solution or understanding of just about anything.

But a person would have to be omniscient in order to say that his use of reason was at all times completely objective. As I explained in a previous installment, all our arguments and reasons take off from and land on a platform suspended on a few basic assumptions about such things as truth and reality. None of these can be proven; they must be accepted by faith. As Bradley G. Green puts it, “all knowledge rests on certain faith commitments that are at the heart of knowing”.[1]

As Christians we understand that God alone is omniscient. This has two implications. First, the closer we can bring our way of reasoning into line with His, the greater is the likelihood that our conclusions will be consistent with truth as He understands and sustains it. And second, because only God is omniscient, He knows things we cannot and He reasons in ways that, while they may seem strange to us, are true and reliable nonetheless, and must be accepted by faith on the part of those who would know truly (Is. 55:8, 9). God, for example, reasons that men can only be redeemed from sin and restored to Him through the shed blood of His own Son. To the reason of fallen men, that proposition sounds ludicrous (1 Cor. 1:22, 23). But once the light of God’s reason breaks through to our thinking, we can see that Jesus is, indeed, the hope of the world and the Logos explaining all things.

Thus, if we want reason to serve us well in the pursuit of knowledge, we must work to bring our finite and subjective use of reason as much as possible into line with God’s pure, eternal, perfect, and complete use of reason.

Reason is tentative

Finally, because reason is not objective, and we are not God, our use of reason, and the conclusions we draw from it, must always have a measure of tentativeness to them (I’m pretty sure about this). This is not to say that we can never hope to know things and to know them truly. Rather, we must ever bear in mind that, while we may know things truly, we can always improve our knowledge, and we should be prepared for what we thought we knew to be altered, even radically, by new information, experiences, and reasoning.

The broader, therefore, the perspective within which we claim to know anything, the greater assurance we may have that our knowledge is reliable. If my claim to truth can be borne out through history, across cultures, and in a wide range of situations and conditions, then I can have a higher degree of certainty that what I know is true. This is the essence of the work of the scientific method, and it is true for all other ways of knowing as well.

The history of scientific thinking provides an excellent case study in the tentative nature of truth. The mention of Thomas Kuhn[2] will perhaps suffice to support this point about reason. This does not mean, of course, that the postmodern view of truth is the last word and that all notions of epistemological certainty – scientific, theological, or otherwise – should simply be abandoned. Rather, it should serve to remind us that there is an ongoing need for evaluation, dialog, research, testing, and situating in appropriate contexts with respect to whatever we claim or wish to know.

All human beings, as knowing creatures, employ reason. We will know better, know more, and know with greater confidence the better we understand reason and the more faithful and consistent we are in its use.

T. M. Moore is Senior Theologian and Historian for the Center for Faith and Science International.